A Summer Evening in Montpellier: a City in the South of France

The average temperature in Montpellier today was about 28ºC during the day. There were few drops of rain. You could count them if you wanted to. It had been very sunny. The lady who came to fix the AC in our lab today did not do a good job. We had to open the windows. It is summer and summertime here in the south of France is quite unique. I am still wondering why there are a lot of beaches here yet they have less rainfall compared to England. I had a meeting with three of my supervisors on the progress of my research, worked on a few codes to analyze some data, and did some editing on a paper that is about to be published, then I left for home. While cycling along the tramway I changed my mind. "Let's see what the city looks like today especially the city centre". I told myself. Ten minutes later I had climbed a hill while turning my bicycle gear from 6 to 1. I knew I did a good job climbing that hill when a middle-aged lady exclaimed in admiration;

"Très bon!" at me while thumbing up as I looked behind.

"Merci", I responded using one of the less than fifty words in my French vocabulary.

I locked my bike at the park and went to pick up two summer T-shirts. They cost me more than I was happy to pay but I bought them all the same. It is summer in the south of France, you either get appropriate clothes or you get cooked. I got a flowery and a plain white design. Time to watch what a summer evening looks like in Place de la Comedie.

The restaurants were packed. There was this noise of humanity, a kind of buzz, the bee type. An indistinct mixture of voices of various pitches, intensities, and emotions. They were smiling, eating, laughing, drinking, and talking. Groups of between two and six people were sitting around squared-top tables with the sides less than half a meter, with their masks off conversing with all excitement and laugher. That was the most practical social distancing I have seen.

Many of these guys were quite animated and they chatted just so. My pain was that I had no idea what they were talking about no matter how close I got and how hard I tried to listen. The language barrier did mute and deafen me. I heard but I didn't comprehend. They were not making a noise, they were saying sensible things. How do you call what you hear and cannot understand and that is not a noise? There were a lot of comings and goings in trams, cars, on motorcycles, bicycles, scooters, and foot. I sat on the concrete floor of what looks like a stage at the city center where artists, speakers, protesters, and campaigners do their deeds during events. Others were sitting there too. My self-appointed responsibility right then was to watch, peradventure I might see something interesting.

While I watched as the people milled by, one of them caught my attention, a woman in her mid-fifties dressed in a diaphanous black gown. Because she sat on the saddle of her bike and the dress was so tiny and short that it could not cover the topmost quarter of her upper thigh, you can imagine the kind of image she presented as her very light dress danced in the warm breeze as she went. Decency is always respectable, all year round, including summer and winter.

I got up from where I was sitting about fifteen minutes later when a young man in his thirties who was looking very old because alcohol had advanced his years came and sat close to me. He was literally mad: speaking to the air and gesticulating to himself and every now and then bowed his head as if in prayers to the god of the bottle of wine he was holding.

I went and sat among the crowd in the Cafe du Theatre, one of the most crowded restaurants in the city centre with some of the over-flowing crowd housed in canopies that were too small. I sat there and continued watching. Not too long one of the bar attendants came around. He was holding the gadgets they used to hold, a miniature computer-like something from which I could place my order. He said something that sounded like,

"Que dois-je vous offrir ?" with a smile.

I did not understand what he was saying but my intuition suggested that he was asking what I would have?

"Je parle pas Francaise. Vous parle Anglais?" I asked him. These two clauses had been my salvation since arriving.

"Oui." He responded with a smile visible beneath his facemask.

"Merci beaucoup." I exclaimed smiling and he smiled in return.

He was the only one wearing one in the restaurant. If he had not responded in the affirmative, I would have brought out my tablet, open the Google Translate app and translate what I wanted from English to French. I do that a lot in grocery stores and supermarkets.

"Do you have non-alcoholic beverages?" I asked.

"Yes". he responded in English that was as broken as my French.

I have gotten used to it. Many French here are struggling with the English language too. That became a source of comfort in a way. Your English is horrible, my French is terrible so that balanced it. No issue.

In all honesty, I was like a little baby just born anew in French culture. I did not know what to order at all. Not the food nor drinks. And buying stuff that evening was not part of the plan but if I had to enjoy his seat and space, I would have to order something. In my heart of hearts, I knew that was the right thing to do. There is a universal word in restaurants and inns understandable everywhere in the world; beer. That was exactly what the bar attendant proposed. He was over smiling and a little too friendly. In this, I had a problem because I am not given to alcohol. I usually joke to people who offer me an alcoholic drink, "My brain is too soft, it cannot handle alcohol." That always bail me out because they would laugh.

"Which one do you have?" I demanded.

"Would you like beer?" He asked, still smiling.

"No. I said I need a soft drink." I responded

"Don't you have any?' I asked politely.

"We have Coca-cola, Schweppes, Fusee, and others." He said.

The name "Fusee" sounded different, strange, and interesting. I knew the other two, This one is something I would like to take.

"Give me 'Fusee'." I said imitating his pronunciation.

He brought the drink, hit his lap with its base a couple of times, and collected the money with his POS machine. Maybe he did that to open it. I did not ask him. I looked at the crown of the drink. He was wrong about the name. It was Fuze Tea. Accent changes the meaning of a word and confuses its pronunciation.

While sipping my Fuze Tea, I began to observe some unique attributes about some couples around the restaurant and the city centre.

In the next blog post, I will write about the four unique couples I saw. Please if you like the story leave a comment.

To be continued....